If You Can Read This I'm Never Gonna Give You Up

About

Rickrolling is a bait-and-switch prank that involves posting a hyperlink that is supposedly relevant to the topic at manus in an online give-and-take, but re-directs the viewer to the music video of "Never Gonna Give You lot Upwards," a 1987 dance pop single by English singer-songwriter Rick Astley. Since May 2007, numerous versions of the music video on YouTube take garnered hundreds of millions, largely driven by the widespread exercise of "rickrolling" and subsequent resurgence in popularity of the song over the following decade.

Origin

Rick Astley'due south dance-pop single "Never Gonna Give You Up" was originally released as part of his 1987 solo debut album Whenever You Need Somebody. Upon its initial release, the single became a number one striking on several international charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Great britain Singles Nautical chart^[ane]. YouTuber Erik Helwig claims to have prank called a Michigan radio station after a sports game and played "Never Gonna Give You lot Up" over the phone on August 31st, 2006. The story was explained in a YouTube video titled "I Did the Commencement Rickroll (west/ Proof)" uploaded on August 7th, 2015 (shown below).

Usage on 4chan

The allurement-and-switch miracle had its beginning on the imageboard customs 4chan every bit a spin-off of an earlier practical joke known every bit duckrolling, in which an external link with a sensational championship (i.e., a specific picture or news item) would exist redirected to an edited paradigm of a duck with wooden wheels.

Duck on rollers that implies rick rolled but with duck so it is duck rolled

Co-ordinate to 4chan founder m00t, the "rickroll" phenomenon began on /v/ (video games) circa May 2007^[2], when someone posted a link to Rick Astley'due south music video disguised as a sneak preview for the then newly released video game Grand Theft Auto Iv. Due to the high buildup of anticipation for the game at that fourth dimension, many GTA fans on the /five/ lath vicious victim to the bait-and-switch prank and the joke became quite popular on 4chan. The timeline the account has been farther corroborated past Wikipedia and Google Trends, which shows that search interest in "rickrolling" began to ascent between Apr and May 2007.

Spread

On May 15th, 2007, one of the primeval known instances of the music video was uploaded under the title "Rickroll'D" by YouTuber Cotter548.

Many people have expressed the opinion that the most attention-getting aspect of the video is Rick Astley'southward unexpectedly deep vocalization in contrast to his youthful looks. Co-ordinate to VH1's PopUp Video, tape executives who heard his recordings didn't believe it was his vox either at first^[three].

In Feb 2008, during the Bearding' Project Chanology protests against the Church building of Scientology, "Never Gonna Give You Up" was played from boomboxes, performed, and shouted. The UK daily The Guardian^[4] chosen it "a live rick-rolling of the Church of Scientology" (shown below, left).
On Apr 1st, 2008, every featured video on YouTube'southward front page redirected to the Rickroll music video ^[5] (shown below, right).

In Apr 2008, the New York Mets baseball team's site posted an online poll^[vi] to select the song for the 8th inning sing-along. On Apr 4th, 2008, FARK users bombarded the poll with upvotes for "Never Gonna Requite You Up." On Apr 7th, the Mets announced that the song had won with over 5 million votes. Rather than using the song for the 8th inning, it was apparently used during the domicile opener, much to the displeasure of Mets fans (shown below, left).

In November 2008, the Rickroll meme came to a full circle when Rick Astley himself appeared on a float during the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Twenty-four hour period Parade^[7], lip synching to his classic striking from 24 years ago (shown below, correct).

Rick Astley was nominated for the Best Deed Ever award for the MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2008, when the voting forum was flooded past fans of the Rickrolling phenomenon^[8]. Astley has voiced his approval of the off-beat joke, stating "MTV was thoroughly Rickrolled" (shown below, left).

On January thirteen, 2009, United states Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi published a video in honour of the launch of the HouseHub YouTube aqueduct featuring the Rick Astley music video at the stop (shown below, right).

In Apr 2009, co-writer of "Never Gonna Requite You Up," Pete Waterman, denounced Google and YouTube at a printing conference that appear the launch of a website campaigning for a fairer deal for songwriters whose work is featured on YouTube. He was quoted saying, "Panorama did a documentary on the exploitation of strange workers in Dubai. I feel similar ane of those workers, because I earned less for a twelvemonth's work off Google or YouTube than they did off the Bahrain government."^[10]

In February 2010, a bipartisan group of Oregon Representatives planned to pull off the "Rickroll" during Business firm sessions. Each of the participants was given a portion of the lyrics of "Never Gonna Give You Upwardly" to subtly plug into their statements during legislative discussion. This scheme was finally revealed on April 1st, 2011, when Representative Jefferson Smith and his co-conspirators edited and uploaded a video of various representatives making their statements, put in proper lyrical order of the vocal (shown below).

Simply as the world was fully grasping Wikileaks for the first fourth dimension, amid dense publications of top secret cables, the arrest of Julian Assange in the UK, and Operation Payback which included serious attacks on Visa, MasterCard, Amazon and Paypal, 1 purported Wikileak document titled "England: Reliability and Longevity of Uk-US Relationship Confirmed" was probably more read than any other:

tertiary: Probably the most important wikileaks document, to date: http:/tinyurl.com/2vw9f2g (expand) about 19 hours ago via TweetDeck Reply View Tweet 200+ recent retweets Operation Payback text blue font product line paper

Originally posted on the eve of December 9th, 2010, readers who clicked through the subconscious link were led to a document^[9] that includes the lyrics to the Rick Astley's song:

SUBJECT: ENGLAND: RELIABILITY AND LONGEVITY OF Britain-The states RELATIONSHIP CONFIRMED
REF: A. LONDON 365 B. LONDON 366
Classified By: Delegate General Robbie Honerkamp for reasons one.iv (B) and (D )
1. (S/NF) Summary: We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I.
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of. You wouldn't get this from whatever other guy.
I but wanna tell you how I'grand feeling. Gotta make you understand.

2. (C/NF) Chorus: Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.r
Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say cheerio, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

3. (S/NF) We've known each other for so long Your center'due south been aching just You're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on We know the game and nosotros're gonna play it
And if you ask me how I'thousand feeling Don't tell me you lot're too bullheaded to see

4. (C/NF) Chorus: Never gonna give you up, never gonna permit you down, never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you weep, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt yous.

On July 27th, 2011, Twitter user @wiggsd tweeted "This WH correspondence briefing isn't nearly equally entertaining as yesterday's." The official White Business firm Twitter business relationship, @whitehouse, replied to the tweet with a link to the Rick Astley video on YouTube.

@wiggsd Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here'southward something more fun: http://t.co/ca31My7 #WHChat

— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) July 27, 2011

On May 23rd, 2012, the original "Never Gonna Requite Y'all Up" YouTube video was taken down for 24-hrs following a copyright complaint^[11].

On June third, 2013, Will Smidlein managed to upload the full Rick Astley music video to Vine the aforementioned twenty-four hour period Vine introduced the new app for Android. Smidlein took to Twitter to announce his accomplishment and later regret^[12]. (shown below)

Will Smidlein @ws I think I broke Vine.vine.co/v/b3gY2OnrgZn 6:38 PM -Jun 3, 2013 151 289 people are talking about this Will Smidlein @ws Sorry, Twitter/Vine engineers. I tried to keep it quiet, but the internet never forgets. 6:39 PM- Jun 3, 2013 31 28 people are talking about this Will Smidlein @ws I truly feel awful for the engineers whose day I ruined with my stupid messing around. 6:51 PM -Jun 3, 2013 20 31 people are talking about this Web page text font web page line

On July 17th, 2014, YouTube blocked the original video uploaded by YouTube user cotter548 in several countries including the United States^[13].

In Baronial 2015, Rock band, The Foo Fighters, rolled past Westboro Baptist protesters in the bed of a truck diggings Rick Astley'due south "Never Gonna Give You Up" in Kansas Urban center, Missouri starting a dance political party^[fourteen] (shown below).

In September 2015, Apple tree Rick Rolled customers accessing the Apple Watch Support Page^[xv]. The "Add together a friend" tutorial department featured an image of the watches contact list with the initials spelling out, "NE VE RG ON NA GI VE YU Upward" (shown below).

Add Friend NE VE RG ON UP NA YU Gl VE technology electronics

On November 18, 2015, hacker group, Anonymous, announced on Twitter that they would be "spamming verified ISIS hashtags with rickrolls" ^[16]. On Nov 24th, the group appear on Twitter that their "first yet simple hashtag to #RickrollDaesh is #SupportISIS."

In April 2016, pro-Eu campaigner, Mario Van Poppel, claimed the Vote Exit domain name before Vote Leave Campaigners. He redirected users from the site to a YouTube video of "Never Gonna Requite You Upward" ^[17].

On July 18th, 2016, Melania Trump made a speech at the National Republican Convention in which she said that her hubby Donald Trump "will never, ever, give up. And, most importantly, he will never, always, let you downward" ^[xviii]. Twitter users took notice and commented over whether it was intentional or not ^[xix].

On October 7th, 2016, Astley participated in an "ask me anything" (AMA) thread on the /r/Music^[twenty] subreddit, which gathered more than 63,900 points (xc% upvoted) and vi,900 comments prior to being archived.

On August 20th, 2017, The Foo Fighters rickrolled their audience in Tokyo when they brought special guest, Rick Astley on stage to sing "Never Gonna Give You Upward" (shown below, left).

On April 9th, 2018, The creators of the television bear witness Westworld posted a video entitled Westworld Season two -- A Primer promising spoilers but all viewers got was a video of cast members singing "Never Gonna Requite Y'all Upward" (shown beneath, right).

In February of 2020, YouTuber Revideo posted a "4K" edit of the original video using video manipulating software (shown beneath). This perturbed Twitter users when it was reposted there two weeks later, causing "Rick Astley" to trend on the site.